Over the past decade, the author and their colleagues have been carrying out research to try to better understand the factors that shape students' engagement with science, as well as their science and career aspirations. The ASPIRES/ASPIRES 2 studies have tracked a cohort of students in England from the age of 10 to 18, combining large-scale national surveys with over 40,000 young people and in-depth, longitudinal interviews with 60 children and their parents. This research has shown that a lack of interest in science is not the main issue. Most young people across both primary and secondary school say that they find science interesting. Yet these positive views of science and scientists are not translating into young people seeing post-16 science as 'for me'. This is called the 'being-doing divide'; young people like doing science, they just don't want to be a scientist in the future. Research points to a range of factors producing this pattern, including: (1) gender, social class and ethnicity factors; (2) educational factors; (3) careers education provision; and (4) science capital.